


On the Merits

by the_wordbutler



Series: Motion Practice [33]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (it's a thing), Alternate Universe, Gen, Girl Scouts, Legal Drama, Rogue Scouts, motion practice universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with two Brownie Girl Scouts and a ball of twine.</p>
<p>And because those Brownies are a Barnes and an almost-Stark, it escalates accordingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Merits

**Author's Note:**

> I am playing a bit with the structure of the Girl Scouts, but it's fanfiction. You're probably not here for my painstaking devotion to accurately portraying childhood scouting organizations.
> 
> Thanks as always to my beta readers, Jen and saranoh. Especially, in this case, to Sara, who somehow inspired this little romp (although I honestly can't remember what she said to start the ball rolling).

You know, if you stand back and think about it for a couple minutes, it’s not really surprising that the whole saga starts with two Brownie Girl Scouts, a dash of ingenuity, and a ball of twine.

“We’re practicing for our camping trip, Uncle Tony,” Dorothea Evelyn _I Ruin Your Yard for Fun and Never Profit_ Barnes justifies, and Tony sighs as the sweat drips into his eyes. His one job this weekend, mandated by his overworked and underpaid better half and backed up by two teenage boys who are sick of being molested by bushes every time they mow, is to trim all the hanging branches in the yard. Nothing fancy or overly complicated, just Tony, his lawn shears, and a little elbow grease. 

And maybe a dash of swearing.

Dot and Amy’s job, meanwhile, is to help him with his branch-trimming by staying completely out of the way and only interrupting in the case of arterial bleeding. And they’ve done admirably . . . if, of course, you overlook the fact that they’ve dismantled several of his careful branch bundles and created a—

A lean-to? Tony frowns and squints at the structure before deciding to call it a shanty. A wobbly, uneven shanty, built from discarded branches, repurposed twine, an upended Little Tikes picnic table, and the shattered dreams of a _thank you for cleaning up the yard while I prepared for trial_ blowjob.

He wipes sweat off his brow with his lawn glove. “You’re not going on a camping trip,” he reminds the girls, who peer up at him with big, hopeful eyes. “You’re roasting marshmallows in Bailey Jacobsen’s backyard while six overbearing troop mothers supervise.”

“But camping is hard work,” Amy, the apple of his eye and his junior sass-master, fires right back. He wrinkles his nose, and she crosses her arms. “Our troop leader says it every meeting. Camping is hard work, and we have to know how to build a tent and survive in the wilderness.”

“Yeah, because pulling a piece of water-proof canvas out of a box is really—”

“We have to get our badge!” Dot cuts him off, stamping her foot in the dirt. Tony raises an eyebrow, and she huffs at him like a teenager. “The other girls started Brownies first and have a lot more badges. Me and Amy have to catch up, or we’ll look stupid at the big camp out.”

“A lot of the other troops are at the big camp out,” Amy chimes in. “We'll meet other girls from other schools. With more badges than us.”

“Lots more badges,” Dot agrees. “And prettier sashes.”

“And we want pretty sashes,” Amy emphasizes.

“A fact you reiterate at the dinner table literally every third night,” Tony mutters, but Amy nods emphatically, like his memory proves the paramount importance of a stylish Brownie sash.

A spring breeze rustles through the trees, and Tony watches for a moment as the shanty shuffles and sways. In truth, their little creation’s just big enough for one girl to crawl into alone, provided she tucks herself up in a tiny ball and holds her breath for the duration. And in even _more_ truth (because that’s certainly a thing when you’re raising a seven-year-old and living on a staple of double-dog dares and triple heart-crosses), Girl Scouts has helped coax Amy out of her shell. Slowly, like an especially reluctant butterfly creeping out of a cocoon, but he supposes Troop 616 deserves some credit for that.

Minimum credit.

The least amount of credit imaginable, really.

He rubs the creases in his forehead. “I know you want pretty sashes,” he admits after another few seconds, “and I know this camping thing—”

“Trip,” Dot corrects haughtily.

“—is important to you, but trust me on this: earning the _the yard is now ruined and Bruce is about to be the grumpiest person on the planet because of it_ badge is not really going to score you big points on your sash beautification project.”

He raises his eyebrows at both of them, punctuation to his very salient point, and watches in abject horror as their little faces light up like Christmas trees. Dot even bounces on the balls of her feet, a sure sign of his impending doom. “There’s a badge for that?” she demands. Tony swears she’s vibrating.

He frowns. “A badge for—”

“Making Bruce grumpy!” Amy announces—and then, out of nowhere, she clasps her hands over her mouth. “Did we already get it?” she asks, and Tony realizes all at once that she’s trying to stop all that barely-contained glee from pouring out all over the place. “Are you going to tell our troop leader? What color is the badge?”

Tony cringes. “Uh, that’s not—” he stammers helplessly, but the piercing _hope_ that flashes up at him in the girls’ eyes stops him in his tracks.

And that, unsurprisingly, is how it starts.

 

==

 

Six nights later, there’s a list hanging on their fridge:

_ POTENTIAL BROWNIE BADGES _

_\- Brother teasing: beginner course_  
_\- Pool cannonballs_  
_\- Brother teasing: advanced tactics_  
_\- Car washing_  
_\- Dog washing_  
_\- Dog walking_  
_\- Dog racing_  
_\- Lego tower to the ceiling_  
_\- Lego combat: melee weapons_  
_\- Disney movie marathon_  
_\- Lego combat: ranged weapons_

“You realize this is a form of madness, right?” 

Bruce asks this as he sidles up next to Tony, his chin almost but not _quite_ resting on Tony’s shoulder, and Tony snorts as he rolls his eyes. To be fair, Tony’s standing in front of the list with a pen in his mouth and his reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose, but that’s not the important part. No, the important part is that marriages rely on support, and right now—

“I know you want to help entertain them over the summer,” Tony’s woefully unsupportive husband continues, “but between their competitiveness and _your_ competitiveness, I’m anticipating a fair amount of disaster.” Bruce pauses, clearly considering the situation. “Unless you’re trying to descend this household into chaos.”

“Do or do not, there is no try,” Tony replies, and adds the _Movie quotation contest_ merit badge to the master list.

 

==

 

“I know you probably mean well,” the girls’ troop leader says three weeks later while employing a tone that suggests she doubts whether Tony has ever meant well in his entire life, “but we can only recognize badges from our official Girl Scout materials. Both of the girls have access to a complete list in their handbooks. And while I know that most parents wish they had more control over what badges we choose to pursue as a troop, that doesn’t mean—” 

“She made the badge herself,” Steve breaks in quickly. Too quickly, like his parental honor is at stake because Sierra Pulaski-Ramirez questioned the integrity of his daughter’s Brownie sash. Who the hell hyphenates a last name with that many syllables, anyway? “She cut it out of cardboard, decorated it, the whole nine yards. And we told her it was pretty, but we also made clear that the fake badge needed to stay at home.”

“You made clear,” Bucky mutters. Steve shoots him a dark look, and he shrugs. “It’s a cardboard Brownie badge. Wasn’t hurting anyone.”

“No, but our six-year-old should respect reasonable rules.” Bucky huffs and crosses his arms, and Steve twists back to Pulaski-Ramirez. “We’re really sorry. We don’t know how they got the safety pins.”

“I think I do,” Bruce intones, and he grunts when Tony _accidentally_ steps on his toes.

Pulaski-Ramirez purses her lips, her hands still on her hips, and surveys the four men in front of her. If he’s honest, Tony’s never really liked the woman—she wears yoga pants everywhere like they’re the height of fashion, she constantly reminds everyone who’ll listen that her husband’s a surgeon, her toddler twins are tiny baby terrorists—but today, he thinks he almost hates her. He definitely hates her scowling disapproval and narrowed eyes, never mind the way she heaves a sigh when she’s done sizing them all up.

“I suppose I’m not surprised four _men_ wouldn’t understand what it means to be a Girl Scout,” she finally says, and Tony’s not sure who bristles harder, Bruce or Steve. Pulaski-Ramirez just sweeps her ponytail off her shoulder. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay? I’m not sure I can deal with twelve girls begging for a _made up six songs about dad’s ugly socks_ badges. It’s not actually a thing, and it shouldn’t be.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” Steve replies tightly, and Bruce nods in polite agreement.

Tony says absolutely nothing.

 

==

 

Three days later, Tony skids to a stop and stares at the sheet of paper taped to the front of the fridge.

_POTENTIAL BROWNIE BADGES, VERSION 2.0_

_\- Random act of kindness to someone your own age_  
_\- Random act of kindness to an adult_  
_\- Help a parent with a chore_  
_\- Help a brother with a chore_  
_\- Make Natasha smile twice_  
_\- Read a book to dad before bed_  
_\- Help a parent make dinner_  
_\- Learn a new card game with a brother_  
_\- Pick three toys or books to give to charity_  
_\- Go to Sunday School with Dot_  
_\- Help Uncle Steve pick out a tie that matches his shirt for once_  
_\- Sing twelve songs about Uncle Steve’s ugly socks_

“Did you find ground turkey, or do we need to add it to the grocery list?” Bruce asks, and all at once, Tony remembers why he charged over to the fridge in the first place. Except when he glances over his shoulder, his husband’s watching him carefully, his eyebrows raised and his lips pressed into a tight line.

Tony grins. “Any idea where the new list of unofficial and definitely unapproved Brownie badges came from, Doctor Banner?” 

Bruce smiles innocently. “None whatsoever.”

“I didn’t think so,” Tony replies, and resumes his search for frozen meat products.

 

==

 

“What about a _scariest dad_ badge?” Beth Fury asks, and Tony chokes on his beer.

The Girl Scouts as a whole are technically on summer vacation now—the big, multiple-troop encampment nightmare is a distant memory, Sierra Pulaski-Ramirez only e-mails about plans for the upcoming school year once a week, and Amy’s content to display her sash (instead of wearing it all the time)—but the summer of Rogue Scouts is really just beginning. By Tony’s count, Dot and Amy have each earned a dozen fictitious badges, and he knows without a doubt that they’re desperate for more. Hell, the only reason that Beth Fury is currently standing in front of him, resplendent in a sparkly bathing suit and water wings, is because the girls want to earn their _invite three new friends over_ badge.

In retrospect, Tony regrets inviting Steve to join the badge-drafting committee.

He wipes beer foam out of his goatee. “Excuse me?” he asks.

Beth sighs like her mother. “Dot and Amy says that you make up special Brownie badges for them,” she explains, hands on her hips, “and that if I ask, you’ll give me a special badge that I can get and pin to my sash.”

Tony grimaces. “That’s not actually how we—”

“And since you’re always saying that my dad is scary,” the girl continues with a shrug, “I think that should be _my_ badge. Since I’m not over enough to help with chores or wash the dogs.”

“They actually wash the cars and walk the dogs,” Tony corrects, “but I—”

He wants to end the sentence on a note of absolute certainty and successfully convince his boss’s (surprisingly adorable) daughter that the battle of totally fabricated Brownie badges belongs only to Amy and her not-quite-cousin Dot—but then, Beth smiles at him. Not manipulatively, not persuasively, just _sweetly_ , proving once and for all that she’s nothing like her terrifying father with the permanent scowl. 

Cute little girls never used to twist Tony’s heart into mush. He blames both Dot and Amy for the sea change.

“How about the _reasonable daughter of an otherwise terrifying power couple_ badge?” Tony suggests. “We’ll present it to your parents as proof that even weirdly impassive laboratory experiments can breed cute kids.”

Beth’s brow crumples in confusion. “What’s an un-passing laboratory experiment?” 

He smirks. “Earn your badge, and then we’ll talk,” he replies, and she grins as she charges down off the deck and back toward the pool.

The next morning, Nick stops in the middle of the office hallway and crosses his arms over his chest. “Do I want to know why my daughter came home with an inch-high stack of cardboard Brownie badges and a sash made out of an old curtain?” he demands.

“Probably not, actually,” Tony replies, and retreats in the other direction like a mature adult.

 

==

 

On the last day of summer, long past her bedtime, Tony discovers Amy sitting on the end of her bed, her Brownie sash clutched in her hands. Or at least, thanks mostly to the dim glow of her butterfly nightlight, he assumes the sash is her official, Brownie-approved collection of badges and pins.

Then, he flips on the overhead light and finds out that Amy’s actually clinging to her tattered Rogue Scout sash, instead. 

The fabric’s an ugly brown and covered with even uglier paisleys, but most of the unspeakable pattern is obscured by dozens of cardboard badges. Most official Brownie badges are triangles that slot together to form hexagons, but the unofficial ones—created by Dot and Amy with only occasional help from friends or brothers—are available in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are covered with stickers, others are decorated with glitter glue and tiny marker drawings, and every single one is a freaking work of art.

On his best days, Tony wants to dress his kid in her favorite outfit and her ridiculous sash and show her off to the world.

And on his worst, he wants to steal her sash and frame it, a private reminder of how this little girl stole his heart.

The bed dips when Tony sits down next to Amy, and she immediately tips into him and pillows her head against his upper arm. He leans down close, kisses her messy curls and breathes in the scent of bubblegum toothpaste and coconut detangler, and she never complains once. Instead, she spends a few more seconds running her fingers over the tapestry of ugly paisley, bright badges, and silver safety pins.

Finally, she murmurs, “Thank you for my pretty sash.”

Tony hugs her tight enough that he thinks his own heart might burst. “You earned it, sweetheart,” he says, and buries his nose in her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be working on replies to comments and tumblr asks this weekend. I apologize for the delay, as house stuff has sort of eaten my life and I've had a lot of bad pain days lately. We're on the mend, and part of mending means replying to your lovely comments. You guys are the best, and I appreciate the patience.


End file.
